Yankees' Luis Severino needs Tommy John surgery
DUNEDIN, Fla. — Luis Severino talked quietly by his locker last week in the home clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field discussing the mysterious pain in his right forearm.
“I just want to play baseball,” the 26-year-old said. “I just want to pitch.”
It won’t be this year.
And 2021 is very much in question as well.
General manager Brian Cashman dropped what amounted to a bombshell — though not one completely devoid of shock value — Tuesday afternoon, announcing that Severino will require Tommy John surgery to repair a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament.
"I am extremely disappointed that I will not be able to put on a Yankees uniform and compete with my teammates this year," Severino posted on Twitter Tuesday night. "But I promise that I will be working tirelessly during this process to come back stronger than ever to make the greatest fans in baseball proud."
The Yankees said Severino will have the surgery on Thursday. Dr. David Altcheck will perform the procedure at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
Severino, who missed most of last season because of a right shoulder injury and lat strain that occurred during rehab, was shut down last Thursday after experiencing soreness in his right forearm after throwing changeups. It was a discomfort that flared up just after his start in Game 3 of the ALCS last October and continued occasionally in the offseason.
Two MRIs and a CT scan taken during the winter revealed nothing, but when the pain resumed last week Severino was sent back to New York Sunday night for even more extensive tests. A dye-cast MRI showed the partial tear and team physician Chris Ahmad and orthopedic specialist Dr. David Altchek both recommended surgery.
“My gut is it’s something that dates back to when he started feeling something,” Cashman said of last October. “In terms of the declaration of the injury, with the physical testing [and] the MRIs and where his complaints were, it didn’t reveal itself [until Monday in New York]. The prior MRIs showed no problem and the point of injury was not around the ligament. Our athletic trainers, our physical therapists and the orthopedics that evaluated him both in Tampa and New York could not produce anything that would typically give concern of a ligament issue in any way, shape or form.”
The Yankees, who after signing Gerrit Cole in the offseason, seemed to have one of the strongest, if not the strongest, rotations in the American League, suddenly have two openings. James Paxton isn’t expected back until at least May after undergoing back surgery and Severino, who signed a four-year, $40 million extension early last spring before being felled by the shoulder injury, is officially done.
Lefthander Jordan Montgomery is almost guaranteed to get one of those spots, but it’s a wide-open competition for the other slot.
Prospects Deivi Garcia, Mike King and Clarke Schmidt are among those who will get serious looks this spring for the job, as will pitchers Jonathan Loaisiga, Chad Bettis and West Islip’s Nick Tropeano, who started Tuesday’s 4-1 victory over the Blue Jays and threw two scoreless innings. But there are plenty of others in the mix.
“We’re going to be in a situation where we’re going to have to really rely further on what we already have,” said Cashman, noting “no marketplace” exists this time of year in terms of making deals with other teams for pitching. “We have a lot of talented, hungry personnel wanting to make a name for themselves or continue their journey [in the majors]. And clearly losing high-caliber players like a Paxton or a Sevy is going to provide that lane and that opportunity for someone to step up and take.”
Though Aaron Boone said he had an idea earlier in the day the news about Severino might not be good, he still put his head down for a moment when Cashman made it official to him after Tuesday’s game when he walked off the field.
Regardless, after seeing an MLB-record 30 players end up on the injured list in 2019 and watching his team win 103 games and the AL East, Boone said losing Severino doesn’t impact how he feels about this year’s club.
“I don’t want to sugarcoat being without Sevy, that’s a blow,” Boone said. “But it doesn’t change our expectations and what we’re truly capable of.”
The news did hit the clubhouse hard.
“It can’t get any worse, right?” Luke Voit said of the 2019 injury bug. “And it feels like it’s going that way already. There’s not a lot to say. It’s a frustrating day.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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